Mythology
by Jordanna Morgan
Summary: Suzuki recounts tales of the undead from other lands.


**Title:** Mythology  
**Author:** Jordanna Morgan  
**Archive Rights:** Please request the author's consent.  
**Rating/Warnings:** Mild PG for talk of monsters and blood drinking.  
**Characters:** The entire _Kotetsujo_ ensemble, but particularly Ikoma and Suzuki.  
**Setting:** Following the events of episode six.  
**Summary:** Suzuki recounts tales of the undead from other lands.  
**Disclaimer:** They belong to Kabaneri Committee and other relevant parties. I'm just playing with them.  
**Notes:** An unabashed monster-mythology geekout session, written for the prompts of "Lore" at Fan Flashworks and "Foreign Lands" at Genprompt Bingo.

* * *

Evenings were the best times aboard the _Kotetsujo_.

In those hours between sunset and sleep, there were no vulnerable pauses in the train's motion to perform maintenance or forage for food. There was nothing to be done but to speed on through the wilderness, outrunning the lurking heart-glows of Kabane in the darkness beyond the tracks. Then crew and passengers alike could relax for a few hours after dinner rations were served, winding down the day with talk and games. It was time that _families_ could spend together—whether they were related by blood, or merely kindred souls who had found each other on this journey.

For Ikoma, one of the most memorable nights followed the escape from Yashiro Station. After the harrowing battle with the fused colony, someone—he didn't know who—had decided everyone's nerves needed a little steadying, and turned out a stash of something alcoholic. Soon several bottles had been passed along through the train to give everyone of appropriate age a share. No one was going to get a hangover from the small amount rationed out, but it was enough to provide an easygoing and enjoyable mood for the rest of the evening.

More importantly, it was the first time some of the bushi crossed lines of convention purely to socialize, coming back to join the steamsmiths and Kabaneri in the car where they were quartered. While the libations were a moot point to Ikoma, he was delighted enough to see the classes unite in something more than the struggle to survive.

Whether it was the drink, or merely the realization that they were all on this unknown path _together_… his friends talked that night, in ways many of them hadn't before. From the bits and pieces Miss Ayame and Kurusu gave up about their disciplined upbringing, the steamsmiths glimpsed the bonds of _duty_ the bushi were burdened with all their lives. When Suzuki reminisced about his homeland, and Takumi recalled dragging Ikoma into embarrassing escapades on a quest to lighten up the sullen, obsessive person he once was, the bushi saw the individuality of the steamsmiths. The discovery of their simultaneously shared and unique humanity was beautiful.

And eventually, the conversation became enlightening in _other_ ways Ikoma had not expected.

"Seriously though," Sukari was saying, as the chuckles died down after an account of his first experience with strong drink. He waved his cup toward Ikoma and Mumei, who both sat nursing tubes of mere sweetened water. "There's something I've been wondering for a while. If you Kabaneri drank the blood of somebody who was drunk—would _you_ get drunk too?"

Ikoma winced at the blunt reference to the Kabaneri diet. "I _really_ don't think that's a question I need answered," he muttered, at the same time aware of how Mumei's suddenly pink cheeks became set in a scowl. Actually, she didn't look offended by the question so much as miffed at the fact that she would be considered too young for alcohol either way… which thankfully made it doubtful she could offer any insights herself.

"Come on, wouldn't it be useful to know for _science_?" Sukari pressed, and Ikoma wondered fleetingly if the younger steamsmith was just angling for an excuse to _volunteer_ to get tipsy.

"Forget it, Sukari. The _last_ thing I want is to find out what I might do if I wasn't thinking straight." The Kabaneri shivered inwardly at the thought. Briefly losing his senses due to lack of blood had been a terrifying experience; the idea of risking such a state _voluntarily_ sounded to him like sheer insanity.

Fortunately, unlike Sukari, the rest of his friends seemed to pick up on the discomfort of the subject. The other steamsmiths were now unsmiling, while Kurusu cleared his throat pointedly at Miss Ayame's side.

"Well," deflected Kibito as he thoughtfully scratched his goatee, "for all we know, alcohol could even be _poison_ to you two, couldn't it?"

"Heh, I wonder if the scientists at Kongokaku have ever tried _that_ on a Kabane," Takumi chimed in, just a bit facetiously.

Sukari rolled his eyes. "On _those_ things? Are you kidding? You're just talking about wasting good booze."

"Honestly, I'd be a bit more curious as to whether they've tried _garlic_," Suzuki chimed in.

To the native citizens of Hinomoto, the suggestion was a seeming _non sequitur_ that drew all eyes to the stranded former sailor.

"Why garlic?" Yukina queried.

Suzuki's eyebrows hiked up over his ever-present goggles. "Ah, so I suppose you haven't heard of…? Well, in the part of the world I come from, there have actually been myths for centuries about creatures known as _vampires_: corrupted dead who rise from their graves to feed upon the blood of the living. Sounds rather _familiar_, doesn't it? In any case, superstition held that garlic would repel them—though I once read that in olden times, when people might unearth and destroy corpses that were suspected of being vampires, wearing a string of garlic 'round the neck had more to do with repelling the odor of _decay_."

Ikoma found himself leaning forward in sudden fascination, eyes wide and alert behind his one-lensed glasses.

"Wait. There's not really anything in _our_ mythology that resembles the Kabane—but your country has legends _that old_ about monsters like them?"

"I wouldn't say they're quite the same. Unlike Kabane, vampires were believed to retain their intelligence. Rather more like you Kabaneri—that is, except for being supposedly so rotted in the soul that they're _innately_ unholy and evil. There's also nothing of heart cages in vampire lore. In fact, the prescribed method for killing one was to hammer a mere wooden stake through the heart. You certainly can't do _that_ with a Kabane." The elder steamsmith frowned. "And to be fair, these myths didn't originate in my own island nation. They came over from some of the _less civilized_ regions of the Continent; but my countrymen do love a sensational story, so the tales caught on." He sobered abruptly. "But of course, that was _before_ the Kabane. As for now, I've no way to know whether the devils rose up in Anglia as well… but I'd imagine that if they did, some poor fools _would_ have tried stakes and garlic against them at first."

Kajika shivered. "Maybe it hasn't happened to your people. I _hope_ not."

A brief, somber silence gripped the compartment. No one wanted to consider the implications of the fact that in the twenty years since the Kabane appeared, there had been no news of contact from beyond their shores. Ikoma wasn't sure which possibility was worse: that the entire world could be besieged with monsters just as they were, or that the other nations may simply have abandoned Hinomoto to its fate, choosing to quarantine the infection on that island instead of having the courage to try to help its survivors.

"But even if there are differences…" Ikoma mused at length, as much to shift the subject as out of genuine interest. "I wonder if stories of those 'vampires' could have anything to do with more isolated Kabane outbreaks in the past. Maybe from an earlier strain of the virus that wasn't as aggressive."

"I couldn't say." Suzuki shrugged. "But from my travels, I can tell you that stories of the undead are to be found all over the world. The Northmen sailors I once knew believed death was presaged by sightings of _draug_: drowned men who returned to land as walking corpses. There was even mention of _draugr_ feeding on blood as well. Other myths don't share that trait of the Kabane, but they still concern the risen dead. In the more southerly isles, people have a fear of witch doctors using _vodou_ magic to revive their mindless husks after death, to make _zombi_ slaves of them on the plantations. There are tales of mummified priests from a lost desert empire awakening to punish tomb robbers. And in the last port my ship visited before coming here, even your own mainland neighbors spoke of _jiangshi_ that rose from graves to torment the living."

Ikoma felt a quickening of his heart within its iron cage. Limited all his life to what little outside knowledge trickled into his home station or Aragane, he had never heard any of this lore from overseas. His mind was set to racing by the revelation that so many lands featured malevolent undead beings in their mythology.

"I wish we had more access to knowledge from the rest of the world," he breathed, fists clenching in restless frustration. "I wish we could learn _more_ about all these legends. If there was some grain of truth behind even one of them, maybe it would also have a connection to the origins of the Kabane—or even tell us a more effective way to _fight_ them."

"This is coming from the guy who used to lecture me for calling the Kabane infection a _curse_," Takumi pointed out with a grin.

"If you dig far enough, superstitions usually have _some_ basis in reality. It's like what Suzuki said about the people who opened graves, and how they probably used garlic to mask the smell. With enough time and secondhand stories, the purpose of it could have been distorted into something else."

"Or a _true_ useful weapon could in turn be mistaken for a superstition," Kurusu mused, his dark eyes narrowing.

"_Exactly_. For all we know, at some point in the past, people _could_ have discovered that garlic was toxic to something that inspired the myth of Suzuki's 'vampires'—maybe even an early form of Kabane. But if they were successfully killed off, and the outbreak was confined enough for word of it to be dismissed by outsiders, using garlic for protection against the _risen dead_ might only have been laughed at as a strange local belief."

Miss Ayame blinked. "Then are you suggesting we should actually try it?"

"Well, let's say I'll be keeping my eyes open for wild garlic during the next stop to gather food," Ikoma admitted, with a wincing smile that quickly faded. "But that was mostly just an example. I doubt garlic itself is any answer. When Aragane fell, I had to sneak past Kabane tearing through the marketplace. Granted, I was kind of in a hurry to get to my piercing gun… but from what I saw, nothing in the vegetable sellers' stands seemed to bother them."

"Which I suppose brings one back to the other countermeasures from the various myths," Suzuki observed. "I'll tell you everything I can remember, Ikoma—though I'm afraid it isn't very much more than I've described already."

"Anything could be worth investigating."

"Including holy water blessed by priests of my country's religion?"

"Okay, _that_ could be a problem.—And it doesn't sound as scientifically grounded as potentially toxic plants, either."

"_I_ think it _all_ sounds crazy," Mumei interjected with a sniff from her place at Ikoma's left side.

Takumi chuckled, leaning fondly on the male Kabaneri's right shoulder to look past him at the female. " 'Scuse me, have you _met_ Ikoma? Crazy's just what he _does_."

"…Sometimes it works?" Ikoma defended himself weakly. "I mean, maybe not exactly how I'd _want_ it to, but…"

Miss Ayame stifled a giggle behind her sleeve. Leaning forward, she passed a confident gaze over her crew.

"Regardless, I think experimenting based on the lore Suzuki can tell us would be a worthwhile effort. It couldn't hurt to try _everything_, no matter how odd it seems." She paused, her warm smile lighting upon the two Kabaneri. "After all, we've learned for ourselves that our best hope can be found in some of the most _unlikely_ places."

* * *

_2019 Jordanna Morgan_


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